Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, lives alone and has dedicated his life to the sea. He struggles to perform daily tasks and lives in poverty, but the young apprentice Manolin helps him as much as he can. Santiago has been unlucky catching fish and fears he may have caught his last one, when one day he finally hooks a giant marlin that takes him on a ride for days. After significant struggle, Santiago is able to eventually catch the fish and bring it back to port. In the process, however, the fish’s skeleton is stripped by predators and Santiago strains himself almost to death. The ending leaves it unclear if Santiago will live, or if so, if he will ever fish again.

The expert weaving of characters, themes, and symbolism makes this much more than just a story of a fisherman. Hemingway plays with the concepts of aging, wisdom, dedication, trust, loyalty, nature, loneliness, and manhood, among others. He touches on some of humankind’s biggest fears and greatest strengths – sometimes in the same sentence. There’s no doubt that only Hemingway could have written this novel and his prizes were deserved. Feel free to read my comments on the specific elements of the story, or fast forward to my Final Thoughts.

Tone and Writing Style

Hemingway is famous for his straightforward writing style that uses words like “he said,” instead of more fanciful descriptions. He uses short, choppy sentence structure and didn’t seem to get the universal writing memo, “show don’t tell.” Hemingway tells and he tells it clearly.

While this is a personal writing style, it also heavily impacts the story. This direct approach tells the reader that the characters live firmly grounded and lack excessive imagination; they’re rooted to the sea and their jobs. Pleasures are simple as well; Santiago’s only real pastime is baseball, and his other pleasures are beer and fish. That’s it.

In addition, Hemingway chooses to focus on descriptors like “the old man” and “the boy” instead of their names. The book is not called, “Santiago’s Marlin,” but The Old Man and the Sea. It is a story of simple folk living a simple life, and it could be the story of someone else in the same village.

Loneliness and Aging

Santiago has no one besides the boy, and the boy’s family doesn’t want him working with Santiago. He is alone, not just out on the boat each day, but in his life. The book shows this undercurrent of solitude through a lack of dialogue and other characters. Santiago himself feels this loneliness (“I wish the boy was here,” repeated throughout), but his characteristic fortitude gets him through anything: “No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable,” (48).

He talks to himself and the sea for most of the book, showing how the waves and creatures are simply extensions of his own consciousness. It’s in his eyes, in his hands, and on his skin:  “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated,” (10). If Santiago were a lively, social man with family and friends, he would not have the relationship he has with the sea. It would not be a part of him.

Nature

This connection with nature is the fundamental undercurrent of the plot. The old man is extremely knowledgeable about fishing and the sea. He should be; this has been his whole life. He can read the skies and note the wind and judge the size of a fish from the smallest tug. Yet there’s something more, a stronger connection, there as well. He lives where it doesn’t, he rides where it pushes him, he takes what it offers. He pushes it back and it lives where he doesn’t, and both have hidden mysteries beneath the surface. The sea itself is the man, and is his greatest enemy at the same time: “Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive,” (106).

The sea is unruly and dangerous, and the old man repeatedly expresses his respect for it. Yet he rarely expresses fear; if anything, he demands respect from the sea as much as he gives it. He’s confident he can rise to the challenge, even as the pull of the fishing line and his fatigue and hunger carve away at his strength. “But man is not made for defeat,’ he said. ‘A man can be destroyed but not defeated,’” (103).

The question left open at the end is who does win – man or nature? Santiago is sapped of all his strength, yet he’s able to bring the marlin back to the port and survive the ordeal. At the same time, the sharks ate away at the marlin as it was tied to his boat, destroying his trophy and eroding his confidence. Because of the sea itself, he may not fish again. It’s unclear who wins and who loses – only that both are inextricably woven into the same struggle of life and death.

Religion

Santiago is not a religious man, but there are strong suggestions of religious symbolism throughout the story. Santiago regularly speaks to God (as well as the sea, and Manolin, and himself). When looking for strength, he repeats Our Fathers and Hail Marys and uses “Christ!” as an expletive.

Upon his return, Santiago also struggles to carry his mast up the hill and resembles Jesus carrying the cross. While fishing, he describes pains in his hands like stigmata when: “…perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood,” (107). Finally, as Santiago is lying in his hut, there is the promise of everything Santiago knows being passed on to his young apprentice Manolin. This would be akin to Jesus’s rebirth after dying for the sake of mankind.

These present yet passive religious tones are echoed in Hemingway’s previous works and reflect his own passive belief in Christian ideology and their impact on his life.

Final Thoughts

Other reviews mention a lack of women and the subjugation of their role in society; that is not the case. This is not a story about women’s inferiority or the importance or strength of men over women. It is simply not a story about women at all. This is a man’s story, showing one old man’s relationship, love, and fight with the sea. It’s powerful and personal while being relatable to others. It demonstrates a man’s strength in the way another story may demonstrate a woman’s strength.

The story is carefully crafted so each word is straightforward yet poignant and the ideas are simple yet subtle. While the powers at play are clear, the winner isn’t. The Old Man and the Sea is a beautiful, strong, and transcendent story. As is often the case with Hemingway, he’s able to craft an endlessly appealing dichotomy out of what might otherwise be a cliche narrative. After you’ve read The Old Man and the Sea, it lingers with you. He’s put into words too many of our fears and hopes for it to simply fade away; this story will last as long as man and nature balance each other out.

Reading The Sun Also Rises for the first time, I was struck by how similar it is to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A quick internet search, of course, showed how late I was to this party. Both novels were written in the ‘20s and by men who were not just each others’ contemporaries, but were colleagues in the same social circles. Naturally their work would reflect different perspectives on the same themes.

Regardless, I press on.

“There was much wine, and ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.” (The Sun Also Rises, 151).

The first, clear parallel in both works is the absolute importance and dependence on society and alcohol. Each character cannot exist without the others reflecting who he is back at him, and many of the dramatic confrontations arise from alcohol-infused scenes.

In The Sun Also Rises, the main character Jake and his compatriots travel to Spain from France to enjoy fishing and the San Fermines Festival. The plot quickly revolves around Brett, Jake’s friend and love interest. The other men also retain feelings for Brett and drama ensues. Day after day, the group eats, drinks, and talks – and these conversations are what make up the book.

The Great Gatsby, similarly, depends entirely on society for its action. Wealthy bachelor Jay Gatsby throws raucous parties to lure his old (now married) flame back to him. He uses the social connections of the narrator and main character, Nick, to make this happen. There is less dialogue in this book than in The Sun, but each important scene still focuses on personal interactions, extravagance, and drinking. In both books, the man lives through others to reach his love interest.

The characters depend on each other, yet at the same time struggle to know what it means to be an individual. I noticed in other reviews it’s easy from the modern perspective to judge Hemingway or Fitzgerald as homophobic or sexist, but one must remember the context in which they wrote. Gender expectations were shifting and both sexes felt the changes.

Manliness, for example, is a topic that comes up frequently in reviews of The Sun Also Rises, for these reasons: Jake, the main character, is impotent due to a war injury. The other men fight over Brett, the “damned fine-looking woman” and central focus of the story’s drama (The Sun, 5). Jake detests a group of gay men who enter a club, and later in the story a younger, virile man is able to sleep with Brett while Jake never can.

In Gatsby, Daisy (the love interest) has a husband who regularly cheats on her, but once Daisy’s infidelity is discovered, her husband must reclaim ownership of her and they eventually move away together. The small-time gas station owner whose wife had been cheating on him also feels he must reclaim his power and ownership, which is why he takes up the gun to go after Gatsby.

While men struggle with their sense of power in the world, the women do too. In Gatsby, woman aren’t the fragile creatures they once were. Nick has a fleeting romance with Jordan Baker, an athletic, tall woman described as “a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage” (Gatsby, 57). She’s shown as cynical, sometimes untruthful, and tomboyish, yet attractive. Among Jordan and the other women in the book, there’s a greater sense of power and independence than had been among women before that time. Clothes, hair, habits – all were drastically changing as women gained autonomy.

From both authors’ perspectives, interestingly, this is portrayed as spoiled, entitled, and “careless” (Gatsby, 112). In both cases, the power of the woman is the pivotal point of the action and it’s eminently destructive. Their actions put men’s careers and relationships into jeopardy. At least Brett, near the end, repeats that she “won’t be one of those bitches” (The Sun, 247). Yet her actions are unchanging and shallow. She does nothing because it’s right, only because it feels good: “You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch,” (The Sun, 248).

The authors themselves no doubt found the changes in women to be frustrating, as they too were still trying to find their masculinity. Men during this time were returning from the first ever world war and adjusting to civilian life. Being a ‘man’ didn’t mean what it used to, and the roles and expectations their parents taught them were no longer applicable.

Gertrude Stein aptly noted all these young people were part of a “lost generation,” and she was referring to this transitioning, free-floating sense of self. I argue, however, that this generation was no more lost than any other.

The Sun Also Rises, like The Great Gatsby, is a wistful, tragic, poetic portrait of youth and love. Each generation has this mantra – modern songs like “We Are Young” by Fun and whole movies and shows are dedicated to our fleeting youth. We are drawn to the drama of uncertain personalities caught up in forces they can’t control and the existential angst that goes along with it. In both books, the main characters are mentally wandering without direction, but this is what gives them freedom, casts a romantic glow to their actions, and leaves the future open.

There is nothing quite as enticing as the bittersweet paradox of unbridled potential paired with identity paralysis. It’s the romance of the tortured free that sucks us in. After reading The Sun Also Rises, I feel a deep craving to pick up a cigarette, swirl a cognac, and order never-ending hors d’oeuvres. Their world is so enticing and so vividly described, it begs you to join in.

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“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever… The Sun also riseth, and The Sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose… The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits… All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” – Ecclesiastes

All too soon, however, Theo is ripped away and must begin a new life among strangers in Las Vegas. Facing trauma, social workers, and a derelict father suddenly back in his life, Theo struggles to make sense of a world collapsing around him. His painful attempts to find himself lead Theo into a swirling eddy of drug and physical abuse, amidst which Theo must carefully guard his own, hauntingly dark secret.

Donna Tartt poured over a decade into crafting this elegantly Dickensian novel, and she succeeds in spiriting the reader away through loss, friendship, drug abuse, art theft, and unrequited love. Tartt’s astonishingly acute character development and enticing plot submerge the reader in Theo’s tantalizingly broken world – allowing the audience to simultaneously rue and grow from Theo’s mistakes.

Tartt’s literary prowess is more evident in this novel than ever; her recurring plays on grammar and punctuation, as well as her expertly crafted dialogue, easily evince her literary savoir fair. Moreover, Tartt’s inspired diction conveys obscure moments and specific emotions in heart wrenching, gasping accuracy. All writers hope to achieve this divine descriptive ability, yet few succeed as Tartt’s flowing prose so eloquently does. Over and over again, the reader will fall in love with the words, characters, and themes of this lasting piece of fiction.  

For those not familiar, Invitation is the haunting story of a death row inmate waiting for his execution. Despite geographic distances from contemporary authors like Franz Kafka and Albert Camus, Invitation, published in 1935, serves as one of the many existentialist literary works of the early 1900s.

As we’re taken through our main character Cincinnatus’s final days, we ride a roller coaster of surreal, dream-like scenarios and conversations that blur the line between crazed fantasy and accurate narration. Theatrical symbolism and themes are also heavily featured, even including a play performed in Cincinnatus’s prison cell. The reader is thus forced to reconcile the staunch, terrifying prospect of death with the sardonic dreamscape of Cincinnatus’s imagination.

Pair this surreal world with unbearable angst. First, Cincinnatus is not told when he will be executed. He is plagued by this uncertainty all while uncaring, cavalier prison staff constantly visit and judge him. Moreover, Cincinnatus explains he must endure this due to the vague and nonsensical crime of “gnostical turpitude.”

The jumbled, surreal thoughts and scenes, the unreliable narration, the oddly dissident character of the guards, and the unclear crime all contribute to a fundamental existentialist point: calling into question what it means to be real, and especially to be sane.

Cincinnatus’s plight and wavering sanity also lend themselves to a discussion of guilt and innocence. It’s unclear what Cincinnatus’s true crimes are, but it’s clear he is a social outcast and he always expected a similar fate. Despite his odd character, the reader is compelled to empathize through the universally held fear of facing an impending, unavoidable death.

On a technical note, the sentences in Invitation are more stilted and blocky than many of Nabokov’s other works, adding to the theme of surreal distortion in the book. It’s notable that this work was translated to English, whereas many of Nabokov’s other pieces were originally written in English. Invitation’s unique wording may be only the result of this difference in translation or Nabokov may have composed it intentionally – we may never know.

As a result of this element, along with the constant surreal scenarios and transitions, Invitation is a difficult read for many the first time. However, further readings improve the themes and allow the reader to delve further into the existentialist elements of the book.

The book represents an excellent example of the philosophy and attitude of European existentialism while painting the harrowing portrait of a man we can’t completely relate to, and a fate we can’t ever understand.